VIENNA, Aug 28, 2007 (AFP) - Iranian cooperation with UN nuclear inspectors should stave off new UN sanctions this year but Tehran must open up further to fully quash the threat of punitive action, diplomats said Tuesday.
Iran has now resolved the UN watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) questions about its experiments with plutonium, a potential atom bomb material, according to an IAEA-Iranian working timetable released by Iran on Monday at the agency's headquarters in Vienna.
The timetable said Iran was also ready to resolve concerns over documents that allegedly point to a secret military project for developing the bomb.
Other issues include Iran's work on sophisticated centrifuges for enriching uranium and its construction of a heavy-water reactor to make plutonium. Both materials can be used to fuel nuclear power reactors but also for the explosive core of an atom bomb.
The goal, said a diplomat, is for Iran to answer by December all questions outstanding from an IAEA investigation that after more than four years is still unable to certify that Tehran's nuclear program is peaceful.
The United States charges that Iran is using the program as a cover for developing atomic weapons and says Tehran is just toying with the IAEA in order to avoid further UN sanctions.
Washington says Iran cannot be allowed to get away with defying two rounds of UN Security Council sanctions aimed at forcing the suspension of uranium enrichment.
The United States, as well as fellow permanent Security Council members Britain and France, are pushing for a third round of sanctions, but Russia and China want first to see how the recent Iranian-IAEA cooperation push plays out.
Iran has made clear this push is dependent on the UN holding off on new sanctions.
"If they take an irrational move, then Iran's cooperation with the agency .. . will be sterile," Iranian negotiator Ali Larijani said earlier this month about the Security Council.
A diplomat in Vienna concurred, saying: "If there is further action in the Security Council, this thing is dead."
Non-proliferation analyst Mark Fitzpatrick said from London: "I think Iran has played this smart in a way that very well postpones any further Security Council action until the end of the year.
"But the United States, Britain and France will be pressing for quicker Security Council action unless Iran really does provide some full answers to the IAEA's questions," he said.
Fitzpatrick, as well as several diplomats, expressed concern that the timetable says the agency will "provide Iran with all remaining questions according to the . . . work plan" so that "no other questions are left."
Giving away the ability to raise new questions is "a risky thing," said a senior European diplomat.
Said Fitzpatrick: "Every time Iran has answered questions, it has been incomplete and has raised additional questions."
"They're getting a get-out-of-jail-free card for the future," he added.
Fitzpatrick also questioned the assertion in the timetable agreement that nuclear safeguards in Iran would be implemented in "a routine manner" once all outstanding questions are settled.
Such wording, said Fitzpatrick, seemed to excuse Iran from signing the IAEA's additional protocol for wider inspections.
US ambassador Gregory Schulte had said last week that Iran must accept this protocol and still meet the Security Council's call for it to suspend uranium enrichment.
The European diplomat said the timetable, which will be considered by the IAEA's board of governors when it meets in September, was not a document he would sign.
"The suggestion that routine safeguards will apply ignores the fact that the additional protocol needs to be implemented as well as confidence-building measures . . . such as suspending enrichment-related activity," the diplomat said.
